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Thanks to International Turmoil, Investors Have New Concerns

6/11/2018

The global economic atmosphere has changed. Trade deals have been torn apart. International relations are fraught with uncertainty. There are new tariffs announced on a weekly basis, and then they are reduced or removed. There are new talks about new wars.

It’s enough to impact the stock market of America, and it is enough to rattle all sorts of investors – the knowledgeable, the conservative, the active and the passive.

Each month as part of its Confidence Index and Household Outlook surveys, Spectrem asks one specific question of investors to determine how they react to a notable current event. For May, the question was “which story in the news is most affecting your economic outlook? And for the first time, International Issues tops the list.

How pervasive is the concern over international affairs? Thirty-four percent of all investors selected International Issues as their No. 1 concern in May, and when the question was last asked in February, only 5 percent of investors cited international matters. Thirty-five percent of retired investors and 36 percent of Millionaires chose International Issues as their top choice in May.

The issue which garnered the second-most selections was Political Environment, which was chosen by 21 percent of all investors. Back in November of 2016, Political Environment earned 83 percent of the votes, by far the greatest single concern mentioned in the Spectrem surveys.

In May, no other choice got more than 5 percent of the selections. In February, Stock Market Conditions got 21 percent, while Political Environment and Taxes got 17 percent each. In May, Stock Market Conditions and Taxes dropped to 4 and 5 percent of the nods.